Various entities can be involved in providing a wireless network to a wireless device. For example, a wireless operator can be a company providing wireless cellular network services. A mobile network operator (MNO) can be an entity providing access capability and communication services to its subscribers through a mobile network infrastructure. A Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) vendor can be an entity distributing a SIM to a device. In some cases, the device is user equipment used in conjunction with a Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) to connect to a mobile network. An end user or customer is a person using a device.
It has become increasingly common for a device to host an embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card (eUICC), which can be a component that is carried on the device's circuit board. An eUICC can be a secure element (SE) that can store one or more electronic Subscriber Identity Modules (eSIMs).
To gain network access, a wireless device should be provisioned with a profile (which can be a SIM or an eSIM). In the case of an eSIM, aspects of eSIM provisioning include the downloading, installing, enabling, disabling, switching and deleting of an eSIM on an eUICC. A profile is a combination of operator data and applications provisioned on an eUICC in a device for the purposes of providing services by an operator. A profile can contain one or more secure data used to prove identity and thus verify contract rights to services.
One aspect of eSIM provisioning is to establish a secure session between an eSIM server (eSIM vendor) and an eUICC to ensure that the proprietary information contained in an eSIM, which can include secret keys of wireless provider and confidential information of the end user, will not be revealed. Hence, various authentication and encryption procedures, including public key infrastructure (PKI) techniques, can be employed in an eSIM provisioning session to establish trust between communicating entities and ensure security of confidential information.
A provisioning of an eSIM to an eUICC may fail because of various reasons, including, for example, a failure in authentication and an error in any provisioning step. An error occurring during a provisioning session can adversely affect user experience. One reason is that a provisioning session can involve multiple parties and a number of authentication steps. The cause of an error may be difficult to detect. One component that is involved in the provisioning of an eSIM is the eUICC's operating system (eUICC OS), which controls the data and the operation of the eUICC. If an error occurs at the eUICC OS, it may affect the proper functioning of the wireless device.